ann handley

This is the story of a once-failing Boston appliance company, and how it used marketing automation and other digital marketing tools to radically alter its course. Not too long ago, Boston’s Yale Appliance was losing money. The economy was in the midst of a recession, and, “I’d read somewhere that people will buy some things anyway during a recession—and one of those things w ...

You’re here on this blog about marketing automation, reading about marketing automation. But let’s talk about something non-automated for a minute. Let’s talk about people. Why? Because successful marketing automation programs are steeped in technology, of course. But they also need marketing people — the sort with real blood pumping through actual hearts — to implement mark ...

As an automation-savvy marketer, you are focused on attracting attention, nurturing relationships, and then converting people into customers. (That’s vastly oversimplified, but basically accurate.). But it’s just as important to signal who is not a good fit for your business, right up front at the “attraction” stage. In other words, it’s just as important that we deter as well as attract.

The following is an excerpt from Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, coming this fall from Ann Handley and Wiley Publishing. More about Ann’s new book and some sweet free prizes below. Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple. ~ Woody Guthrie Business, like life, can be complicated.